It’s customary on my birthday for me to ask for feedback and review my life – who am I and where I’m going (as well as to eat large qualities of cake). Last year I did an integral life review and have achieved 80-90% of the growth plans I made then. This year I decided to ask the people that know me best what my key virtues are. I have a certain British reluctance to do this but got over this. People were forthcoming in their responses which each carried a flavour of the observer and the context the knew me in, and there was also a large degree of correlation. Here are the main ones we triangulated on (grouped):
My Core Virtues are:
Courage/ confidence/ Grit/determination
Sociability/ outgoing/amiable
Loyalty/ integrity
Good looks and modesty (OK I added that those 🙂
I’ve done some work on myself and like to think I know myself pretty well, however this exercise was revealing and I recommend it for the courageous. Accepting people’s positive views is as difficult for many as hearing “negative feedback”, and just as valuable. If you’re thinking along those lines it’s also possible to turn a core virtues list into “Pitfalls List.” For example:
Arrogant/foolhardy/under-planned/overly task focused
Distracted by social prospects/ fins it hard to work alone
Inflexible/loyal to the undeserving
I.e. – Every virtue can have its shadow side.
Another interesting question is – what are your core wounds?